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Topic: SCE-200 semi-cryo engine info (Read 90000 times)

Seems like India will have a fine engine for an RLV. Just cluster seven SC-200s like Blue Origin is doing with their BE-4 for the first stage.

They have been toying with a design having a cluster of 5 engines for the first stage. Not sure if they can use the central engine for propulsive recovery in that configuration though. I'm guessing the engine would need to be capable of burning at a much lower than nominal thrust for that to work out.

Seems like India will have a fine engine for an RLV. Just cluster seven SC-200s like Blue Origin is doing with their BE-4 for the first stage.

They have been toying with a design having a cluster of 5 engines for the first stage. Not sure if they can use the central engine for propulsive recovery in that configuration though. I'm guessing the engine would need to be capable of burning at a much lower than nominal thrust for that to work out.

Seems like India will have a fine engine for an RLV. Just cluster seven SC-200s like Blue Origin is doing with their BE-4 for the first stage.

They have been toying with a design having a cluster of 5 engines for the first stage. Not sure if they can use the central engine for propulsive recovery in that configuration though. I'm guessing the engine would need to be capable of burning at a much lower than nominal thrust for that to work out.

Maybe hoverslam can compensate for throttleability?

Well, F9 can do a 3-engine landing burn, though the 1-3-1 sequence probably averages closer to the overall effect of a 2-engine burn. 2 of a 9 engine cluster is 22% thrust versus the 20% of a 1/5, so the answer is possibly yes, though it'd be a toasty, short duration, high-g burn, with little margin and high risk.

If throttleability is an issue, then a 7-engine cluster is likely safer.

Some very rough math shows a 5 x SCE-200 + 2 x CE-20 can do ~30-33t to LEO while 7 x SCE-200 + 2-3 x CE-20 can do 40-45t. With a 33-50% penalty for first stage recovery, you're looking at a ~15-22t or ~20-30t semi-reusable launcher. If CE-20s aren't too expensive, then 3 on the 7-engine booster would push its second stage comfortably above Centaur-class T/W levels, and at 66% remaining thrust, give the stage a fighting chance at completing the mission in the event of a single-engine failure.

With the flight cost differences between the two being only additional fuel, stretched tanks on the 7-engine booster's S2, refurb on two more booster engines and possibly an extra CE-20, I can see why Steven suggested going with (and Blue actually did chose) the 7-engine booster.

Current version in development is designed to be expendable with follow-on version designed to support reuse.

Actually SCE-200 is being developed with reusability in mind. Each engine can be reused up to 15 times.

I know the semi-cryo engine intended for use in the planned TSTO (Two-Stage-To-Orbit) vehicle is supposed to be reusable as you've said, however it's not clear to me whether that engine is the same as the SCE-200, which is meant for replacing the GSLV-Mk3's L110 stage (UDMH/N2O4).

Logically, it might be practical for ISRO to first get SCE-200 non-reusably flying on GSLV-Mk3, which is an expendable launch vehicle, even while it works to achieve reusability on its semi-cryo engine meant for TSTO.

All liquid fuel rocket engines are reusable to a certain extent. The CE-20 that was recently flown on MK-3 was fired 2-3 times before it was flight tested.

There are issues if you choose to do thrust chamber or nozzle cooling with ablative linings, as used on the Merlin 1a, RS68 the Lance missile engines, despite all being liquid propellants.

Seems like India will have a fine engine for an RLV. Just cluster seven SC-200s like Blue Origin is doing with their BE-4 for the first stage.

They have been toying with a design having a cluster of 5 engines for the first stage. Not sure if they can use the central engine for propulsive recovery in that configuration though. I'm guessing the engine would need to be capable of burning at a much lower than nominal thrust for that to work out.

Actually the real achievement of this engine has happened before it has reached a test stand.

ISRO have managed to transfer manufacturing techniques to India and make the engine in India, something which the US failed to do with the RD180, despite having 16 years to do so.

Even if the engine fails to hit it's Isp and thrust targets (I don't expect it will) that alone is a major achievement for the Indian rocket engineering community.

It might be interesting to compare the development budget of the SC-200 with AJR AR-1.

It's an academic question now but I wonder, if SCE-200 has started earlier would India be deemed a viable supplier of engines for the booster stage of Vulcan? I guess we'll never know.

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Some very rough math shows a 5 x SCE-200 + 2 x CE-20 can do ~30-33t to LEO while 7 x SCE-200 + 2-3 x CE-20 can do 40-45t. With a 33-50% penalty for first stage recovery, you're looking at a ~15-22t or ~20-30t semi-reusable launcher. If CE-20s aren't too expensive, then 3 on the 7-engine booster would push its second stage comfortably above Centaur-class T/W levels, and at 66% remaining thrust, give the stage a fighting chance at completing the mission in the event of a single-engine failure.

Are you sure of your maths, SCE200 is about same as Merlin and F9 is about 20t to LEO.

Are you sure of your maths, SCE200 is about same as Merlin and F9 is about 20t to LEO.

Yup. As K210 indicated, if you look it up, you'll actually see that Merlin is 900kN, while SCE-200 is ~2MN. As such, the SCE-200 is a bit over twice the size of the Merlin 1D, and most of the size of the ~2.4MN BE-4.

Now add the fact that it's staged combustion and thus gives a decent ISP increase over Merlin's GG cycle, and you have a rather nice engine. That is, assuming it turns out to be reliable -- which I'm hopeful for, as russianspaceweb describes it as "an equivalent of the Russian RD-191 engine, but using a more conservative engineering approach." A conservative approach seems quite reasonable for India's first crack at producing a high performance kerolox engine.

Given the performance, the math also intuitively works out since a bit over twice the thrust per engine over Merlin means a 7 x SCE-200 should, once factoring in needing less booster prop due to the higher ISP, as well as using a high energy upper stage, do about twice what an F9 can do.

And then India can steal from ULA's ACES playbook and start flying hydrolox tankers on top of 7 x SCE-200 boosters to refuel already orbited CE-20 upper stages, except ISRO will have a cheaply reusable booster, and ULA will be flying expendable Vulcans -- but I guess I'm straying off topic... ;-)

“After a presentation before the Space Commission, Isro has got the approval for developing the semi-cryogenic rocket stage. The deadline to develop this stage is 29 months. Once the stage is ready, the carrying capability of GSLV Mk III will increase from the existing four tonnes to five tonnes.”

I thought after replacing L110 stage with SCE-200 stage MK3 launch vehicle performance would increase like in the range of around 2000kg.But according above news article they are saying about only 1000kg improvement is this is directly from ISRO are reporter made it out of his own thinking..

“After a presentation before the Space Commission, Isro has got the approval for developing the semi-cryogenic rocket stage. The deadline to develop this stage is 29 months. Once the stage is ready, the carrying capability of GSLV Mk III will increase from the existing four tonnes to five tonnes.”

I thought after replacing L110 stage with SCE-200 stage MK3 launch vehicle performance would increase like in the range of around 2000kg.But according above news article they are saying about only 1000kg improvement is this is directly from ISRO are reporter made it out of his own thinking..

“After a presentation before the Space Commission, Isro has got the approval for developing the semi-cryogenic rocket stage. The deadline to develop this stage is 29 months. Once the stage is ready, the carrying capability of GSLV Mk III will increase from the existing four tonnes to five tonnes.”

I thought after replacing L110 stage with SCE-200 stage MK3 launch vehicle performance would increase like in the range of around 2000kg.But according above news article they are saying about only 1000kg improvement is this is directly from ISRO are reporter made it out of his own thinking..

The 6 ton to GTO figure will only be achieved after all upgrades have been carried out. In the upcoming D2 flight GTO capacity will go up from 4 ton to 4.4 tons so the SC-200 stage should increase it to around 5.4 ton. The remaining 0.6 ton will have to come from improving the C-25 stage and other general enhancements.

After all upgrades have been carried out MK-3 should have a GTO payload capacity of at least 5.5 tons.

Is it SCE-200 engine manufacturing came near to completion by Godrej Industries or still individual component testing is going on at Ukraine facilities....and what about Mahendragiri test facilities status...anybody have any insider information...

Is it SCE-200 engine manufacturing came near to completion by Godrej Industries or still individual component testing is going on at Ukraine facilities....and what about Mahendragiri test facilities status...anybody have any insider information...

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has progressed to the testing of subsystems in the development of a semi-cryogenic engine for rockets with heavier payload capacity.

The testing facilities at the ISRO Propulsion Complex, Mahendragiri, are being augmented for the engine being developed by the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre here under a project codenamed SCE 200. Three of the four turbo pumps of the new engine have been tested and the pre-burner and thrust chamber are being readied for testing, LPSC Director S. Somanath told The Hindu.

Quote

ISRO scientists have simultaneously begun work on the stage configuration. "We hope to complete the development of the engine by 2019. The stage test is expected to take place by 2020, followed by the first flight test in 2021," he said.

ISRO is aiming for a hot fire of SCE-200 in 2019. I remember reading some articles in 2016 which quoted the then head of LPSC stating the reason for the delay being problems with the oxidiser rich staged combustion cycle, specially some combustion instability issues. Hopefully those problems have been solved and the SCE-200 is ready for testing next year.